<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Thwarted By a Malign Star by iheartloofas, juvenna_reverie</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24729991">Thwarted By a Malign Star</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iheartloofas/pseuds/iheartloofas'>iheartloofas</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/juvenna_reverie/pseuds/juvenna_reverie'>juvenna_reverie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Week One of Quarantine [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner, Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Star-crossed, Starcrossed Lovers, lovers to strangers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:35:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,230</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24729991</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iheartloofas/pseuds/iheartloofas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/juvenna_reverie/pseuds/juvenna_reverie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>War was never quiet.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jewel Bundren/Jay Gatsby, Jewel Bundren/OC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Week One of Quarantine [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Thwarted By a Malign Star</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>if you don't know who jewel bundren is you can get da fuck out of here</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>September, 1917</p><p>Jewel missed the quiet.</p><p>The farm was always close to silent past ten. After the work was done, after supper sat deep in their stomachs, there wasn’t anything to do but sleep. The cicadas buzzed in summer. The wind whistled through the poorly nailed slats of the roof. But they became part of the peace in that way only familiar things can.</p><p>War was never quiet.</p><p>Even during these numbing stretches of waiting, there remained the moans of the dying, or those having nightmares about dying, or those who wished they were dead. Boots and bare feet alike smacked into the muck of the trench floor. Water tins and firearms clanked against one another well into the early morning. Men whispered to each other, too tired to sleep. </p><p>He was exhausted. So cold his bones ached. But he could only lay back against a pile of sandbags, wide awake and listening. And now he was out of cigarettes. </p><p>“Got a dry match?”</p><p>Jewel looked up. </p><p>A man stood over him. He had sandy hair, cropped short, with a wide grin that felt entirely out of place among the mud and the clouded sky. </p><p>Jewel tried to remember the man’s name. Fitz? Gibbs? </p><p>The man seemed to sense Jewel’s hesitancy. He held out a hand, still grinning. “It’s Gatz. James Gatz, but I prefer Jimmy.” </p><p>Jewel eyed the outstretched hand. He gave it a curt shake. “Jewel Bundren.”</p><p>“Nice to meet you Jewel. Got a match? Mine fell into the mud, so they’re useless.”</p><p>Jewel silently offered one up, useless now that he was out of cigarettes. Gatz for some reason took this as an invitation to sit down beside him, languidly exhaling smoke.</p><p>He couldn’t muster up the energy to tell the guy to fuck off, so he chose to lay his head back against the sandbags instead. He closed his eyes, and tried to steady his breathing. He’d almost completely forgotten about Jimmy Gatz when he felt a sharp tap on his ankle.<br/>
He opened his eyes, ready to tell the man to go and bother someone else, when he saw a hand outstretched with a lit cigarette between its fingers. An offering.</p><p>“Fancy a drag?”</p><p>Jewel sat up, taking the cigarette and placing it between his lips. </p><p>“Where’re you from Jewel Bundren?”</p><p>Jewel took another drag. “Mississippi. Middle of nowhere.”</p><p>Gatz chuckled. “I’m from North Dakota. Middle of nowhere.”</p><p>Jewel smiled ruefully. “Yet still better than here.”</p><p>“In that, we can agree.”</p><p>They passed a few moments without talking, Jewel exhaling smoke, Gatz looking down at his boots.</p><p>“Would you like to be friends, Jewel?”</p><p>The childishness of the phrase struck him. Wanna be friends. It reminded Jewel of simpler days, lazing around in the grass surrounding the schoolyard. Any other time the question would’ve come across as infantile, immature. </p><p>But now it just made him homesick.</p><p>Jewel let out a small laugh under his breath. “Sure. We can be friends.”</p><p>Jimmy looked over at him, looking almost manic with delight. “Who knew the silent soldier could laugh.”</p><p>He felt defensive. “There’s not exactly much to laugh about.”</p><p>“There’s always something to laugh about.” Jimmy delicately snatched back the cigarette from Jewel and brought it to his lips. His hands were calloused, all soldier’s hands were after a few months on duty, but they had this way about them. His fingers were long and pale, and the wrist of his left hand curled ever so slightly on his knee. For a boy from middle-of-nowhere North Dakota, he seemed almost comically aristocratic. His accent added to the polished aura, with every word heavily enunciated in a way Jewel had only ever heard on the radio. </p><p>He glanced at his profile. His eyes were closed, his face slightly tilted up toward the cloudy sky. His face was smooth, untroubled. Almost as if he felt Jewel’s gaze, he opened his eyes and turned his head. He smiled at him then, soft. </p><p>Oh. </p><p>Jewel smiled back.</p><p>June, 1922</p><p>He looked so different and yet somehow exactly the same. </p><p>He was broader now, nothing like that lanky youth Gatsby had known. But those eyes. Blue and beautiful. They were more familiar to him than his own.</p><p>Jewel stared back at him, shock painted across his face. He supposed he did look rather different. His hair, once cropped close to his head, was slicked back into fashionable waves. But he supposed the biggest difference was one that could not be described so clearly. It was a subtlety that came with wealth, a way to raise your head, to hold your shoulders. </p><p>“Mr. Gatsby?”</p><p>He looked at the woman on the arm of the love of his life. Chloe, he believed her name was. She was beautiful, tall and dark-haired. He smiled at her, a reflex at this point.</p><p>“Pardon me my dear. You were saying?”</p><p>She drew her eyebrows together. “I was introducing my husband. Jewel Bundren.” She smiled at the man by her side. But Jewel refused to take his eyes off him. </p><p>“Jimmy?”</p><p>Oh god. He hadn’t heard that name in over three years. It felt like thirty.</p><p>The name brought with it memories, both sweet and painful. A word whispered softly against his neck. A yell of panic, torn out of a throat.</p><p>Chloe glanced between them. “Do you two-?” She hesitated, unsure what to say. “Do you two perhaps know each other?”</p><p>Know each other. </p><p>Gatsby (no, Jimmy) looked back at Jewel. He had known this man’s darkest fears. His most obscure, most miniscule desires. He knew that he hated the taste of the canned beans passed around the trenches. He knew exactly where to touch, exactly where to breathe against, to make him gasp.</p><p>“No. I was mistaken, we’ve never met.” Jewel tore his eyes from Gatsby, and grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing waiter.</p><p>Oh.</p><p>But no, he was right. He had never met this man. This was not the Jewel he knew. He looked like him, had the same voice. The same name. But when he smiled reassuringly at his wife, it was small and forced, nothing like the wide grin that only belonged to Jimmy Gatz. </p><p>This man was a stranger. A guest at his club, passing for one night. He wouldn’t come back, and Gatsby wouldn’t miss him. His heart did not ache for this man, with his arm wrapped around his pretty wife’s waist, refusing to make eye contact. </p><p>He’d lost his Jewel a long time ago. He’d found him while the world was ending. But when it started to put itself back together, it didn’t seem to have any room for them.</p><p>And so Jimmy became Jay Gatsby, owner of a popular jazz club in the heart of New York. He had no clue where Jewel had gone. How he had gotten himself a wife that looked like she came from money, quite far removed from the typical farmer’s wife.</p><p>He told himself he didn’t care.</p><p>He clasped his hands together. “Well, it was nice to meet you both.” He bent down to press a kiss to Chloe’s gloved hand. “I must be attending to my other guests.” </p><p>He glanced up again. Blue eyes met his own.</p><p>Something passed between them. An understanding, perhaps.</p><p>Or a goodbye.</p><p>Jay turned back to the crowd, and let himself fade into it.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>